A recent U.S. court ruling found America’s biggest tech companies, Apple, Alphabet Inc. (parent company of Google), Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla cannot be held responsible for child labor found in their cobalt supply chains. The court stated that the companies had an “ordinary buyer-seller transaction” with their suppliers in the DRC. This 3-0 decision is a setback for advocacy groups looking to hold big businesses accountable for modern slavery found in their supply chains.

Documented “grievous human rights abuses”

Cobalt is a critical mineral in the manufacture of rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles and electronic devices and the DRC has over 70% of the world’s cobalt reserves. Recently, the demand for cobalt has grown exponentially as countries try to make a green transition and become carbon neutral.

Reuters reports that according to the complaint:

“Companies ‘deliberately obscured’ their dependence on child labor, including many children pressured into work by hunger and extreme poverty, to ensure their growing need for the metal would be met.”

The plaintiffs include four former miners and legal representatives of child miners who lost their lives or suffered major injuries while mining cobalt in the DRC. ABC News reports that the plaintiffs accused the 5 tech giants of “knowingly benefitting from and aiding and abetting the cruel and brutal use of young children in the DRC to mine cobalt.” Moreover, they claim that the defendants “know and have known for a significant period of time” about the multiple types and well-documented human rights violations in the cobalt mining supply chain of the DRC.

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